Tag Archives: Donald Trump

DC riot

Trump reaches for bottom

(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Donald Trump operates with a bottomless trove of outrageous pronouncements from which he uncovers ways to make declarations that are profoundly offensive and reprehensible.

This weekend, the 45th POTUS did it again. He ventured to Texas to declare that he might — if hell freezes over and he is elected president in 2024 — offer unconditional pardons to the traitors who stormed the Capitol Building on 1/6 and sought to block the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

That’s right. He would pardon the men and women who threatened to kill Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, injured scores of police officers, defecated on the floor of the Capitol and vandalized the hall of government by smashing through windows.

There is a reason this blog never has refused to print the words “President” and “Trump” consecutively. It is because your friendly blogger cannot recognize this lawless, corrupt, amoral, profane individual as my head of state, head of government and commander in chief.

For this moronic dipsh** to suggest he might offer pardons to those who — at his incitement — stormed the Capitol Building and sought to dismember our democratic process is so utterly beyond the pale that it boggles my understanding how any sensible human being can cling to the crap that flows from this guy’s mouth.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Trump ‘shouldn’t lead the GOP’

Asa Hutchinson has just become persona non grata in the cult-following world of Donald J. Trump. Why? Because the Republican Arkansas governor spoke the blunt truth about Trump’s ability to lead his party, let alone to become president of the United States of America.

God forbid the latter from occurring.

Hutchinson leads the Republican Governors Association and he said this weekend that Trump is unfit for the office he once held. “I do not believe Trump is the one to lead our party and our country again, as president,” Hutchinson told Insider on the sidelines of the NGA Winter Meeting in Washington, DC.

He was responding, apparently, to a video that’s gone viral in which Trump declares himself to be the “45th and 47th president.” Good gawd.

Hutchinson now is likely to become a target of the Trump cultists/wackos/idiots who cling to the notion that the former Idiot in Chief is going to seek the highest office … yet again.

In truth, though, Gov. Hutchinson is speaking realistically about the absolute worthlessness that Donald Trump brings to any reasonable or rational debate that needs to occur.

Donald Trump should not lead the country again, says the Republican leader of the National Governors Association (msn.com)

His message will pass through the vacuous skulls of millions of Trumpkins, if you’ll pardon the pithy reference, like sh** through the proverbial goose.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

DA gets new grand jury … yes!

Fani Willis is emerging as potentially my newest political hero. She is the Fulton County (Ga.) district attorney who sought — and then received — permission to seat a special grand jury that is going to examine whether Donald J. Trump interfered with the 2020 presidential election.

Hmm. Let’s see. What do we have here?

We have a recorded conversation featuring Trump telling Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger to “find” 11,780 votes that can be credited to the ex-POTUS and possibly keep him in power. Oh, Joe Biden won Georgia’s electoral votes, but Trump harangued the chief elections officer in Georgia to find enough votes to swing it to Trump’s list of winning states.

Where I come from, that sounds for all the world like intimidation. You see, Trump told Raffensberger — a Republican who voted for Trump — to break the law. To his great credit, Raffensberger said no can do, Mr. President. Trump then threatened Raffensberger with prosecution if he didn’t comply with the Insurrectionist in Chief’s demand.

It’s all recorded, man. Raffensberger had the good sense to memorialize it for posterity. Is it legal for Trump to badger a state elections official in that manner? Is it moral? Does it make sense for Trump to, in effect, hand a prosecuting attorney — in this case, DA Willis — the proverbial smoking gun in a criminal investigation?

Willis sought the special grand jury that is going to look exclusively at the allegation of election interference. It didn’t take the state court system long to decide that a special panel is necessary to get to the truth behind Donald Trump’s effort to rig an election he said is … um, rigged.

I believe the prosecutor is onto something huge.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

In defense of 1/6 panel

I feel this overwhelming need to defend the work being pursued by U.S. House Select Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson and his band of truth-seekers.

The Mississippi Democrat is at the forefront of a probe into the 1/6 insurrection that sought to block the certification of the 2020 presidential election. None other than former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican, has said the panel has “run amok” and faces prosecution on criminal charges if Republicans take control of Congress after the midterm election.

Gingrich is spouting nothing less than pure horsesh**.

The panel wants to know several key things about the terrible events that occurred a little more than a year ago.

What did Donald Trump know in advance of what the insurrectionist rioters would do? Why didn’t he stop them from ransacking the Capitol Building? Why didn’t he summon troops to protect Vice President Pence, who was being targeted by chants to hang him?  What are the details of the fake elector plot that has been revealed, with electors pledged to the defeated POTUS casting their votes to support him and throw the election in his favor?

This is complicated and tricky stuff, folks! To suggest, as Newtie has done, that the 1/6 committee could be “jailed” if the GOP takes over Congress is beyond despicable. The committee is doing precisely what the duly designated speaker of the House asked it to do.

Let us remember, too, that Donald Trump brought several members of his family into his inner circle while he was pretending to be POTUS. Ivanka, Don Jr. and Eric Trump all were key players in this drama as it unfolded before our eyes on 1/6. If the committee wants them to testify to what they know, then they should be compelled to tell us all the truth behind that horrible event.

Chairman Thompson doesn’t need little ol’ me to defend him. Still, I cannot sit by while the enemies of the truth are maligning the work he and his committee are doing to protect our very government.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, national news

‘They’ll go after children’

Donald J. Trump has every right to defend his grown kids. However, he ought to rethink — which he won’t do — his stated belief that the 1/6 House committee will “go after children.”

Here is part of what Trump said about a request from the committee to hear from Ivanka Trump: “It’s a disgrace, what’s going on. They’re using these things to try and get people’s minds off how incompetently our country is being run. And they don’t care. They’ll go after children.”

Oh, good grief.

Ivanka Trump is a grown woman who served during Daddy Trump’s term in office as a senior adviser. She was on the federal payroll, dammit, drawn a salary to advise her father on matters relating to public policy.

She is not a child. It’s as if the House select committee asked to speak with Trump’s son Barron, a teenager who his parents have kept out of the glaring public eye. Oh, no. Ivanka is part of the Trump presidential team and well might have information that the committee needs to collect to help it assess what Daddy Donald on 1/6 when the riotous insurrectionist mob stormed Capitol Hill in an effort to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.

Ivanka Trump crossed the line that separates family from public figure. As such, the House committee has every right and reason to ask her to tell lawmakers what she knows and when she knew it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Uncategorized

SCOTUS deals blow to ex-POTUS

Part of me wishes I could have been in whatever room Donald Trump was in when he got word that the Supreme Court had delivered a potentially fatal blow to his cover-up efforts relating to the 1/6 insurrection.

More to the point, that same part of me wishes I could have heard his response when he learned that all three justices he nominated for the court voted with the majority in squashing the effort.

You see, Donald Trump expects the judges he nominates to be loyal to him, not to the law or to the Constitution.

The court ruled 8 to 1 to require the National Archives to turn over records to the House committee examining the insurrection. The only dissent came from Justice Clarence Thomas. As for Trump’s nominees — Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch — well, they stuck with the law.

That’s how it should be.

According to NPR.org: The court’s order paves the way for the release of records from the National Archives. The records could shed light on the events that led to the riot by Trump supporters protesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, which was won by Democrat Joe Biden.

The high court said lower courts had determined that Trump could not claim “executive privilege” in hiding those records.

“Because the Court of Appeals concluded that President Trump’s claims would have failed even if he were the incumbent, his status as a former President necessarily made no difference to the court’s decision,” the court said in its order.

Lifetime appointments to federal courts do have this way of freeing judges from a good bit of political pressure. That, too, is in keeping with what the founders had in mind when they wrote the Constitution. They were wise men.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Uncategorized

‘I don’t believe the polls’

(Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

Let us be clear about something President Biden said today at his first formal press conference of the new year.

He said he doesn’t “believe the polls” that indicate moderates are dropping away from him after they voted for him in 2020.

Uh, Mr. President? Believe the polls, sir.

I understand that all politicians say such things when the public opinion polling casts them in a negative light. When pols are riding high, then the polls become pearls of wisdom and discernment.

Indeed, Donald Trump constantly railed at the polls that showed him continually lagging in overall public support. He would suggest that crowd size at his rallies put the lie to those polls. Well … they were accurate, too.

President Biden is being victimized by the continuing pandemic, inflation, pressure from overseas adversaries. However, the economy isn’t in nearly the dire straits that his foes have suggested.

Yet, the polls continue to show him lagging among some key voting blocs.

The only course for President Biden is for the polls to start ticking back up. How does that happen? He needs to pitch strongly the successes he has produced during his first year in office.

For instance, jobs are coming back. Almost nothing soothes a restive public better than a vibrant economy. Joe Biden’s economic team can take some credit for the rebound that is occurring.

If the polls show some improvement, my hunch is that President Biden will learn immediately to endorse the wisdom of his fellow Americans.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Uncategorized

Legal team gets the summons

The subpoenas are rolling out with increasing frequency from the House of Representatives select committee charged with getting at the cause of the 1/6 insurrection.

The panel has issued summons for Rudy Giuliani and three other lawyers who are close to Donald Trump. The truth about them — in my view, at least — is that they are lousy lawyers, but they do have some information, apparently, that is germane to the investigation that is under way.

I don’t expect them to comply. They are likely to face contempt of Congress charges along with other Trumpkins who’ve been subpoenaed.

Here, though, is my fundamental question: If they have nothing to hide, why in the name of juris prudence would they resist talking to the panel?

The Hill reports: The subpoena to Giuliani, a former New York City mayor and close Trump adviser throughout his presidency, focuses both on his ability to offer insight into the former president state of mind in the days surrounding Jan. 6 as well as his work pushing claims of election fraud in appearances on television and in court rooms across the country.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/590275-jan-6-panel-subpoenas-rudy-giuliani-sidney-powell

The House committee, chaired by Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., is facing what could be called a “target-rich environment.” Giuliani has been at the forefront of efforts to promote The Big Lie alleging voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election — and which was the root cause of the insurrection that stormed Capitol Hill in an effort to block the certification of the election’s result.

For his part, Trump continues to insist that The Big Lie is true. It isn’t. It is a lie that comes from the Liar in Chief. Trump cannot — or will not — tell the truth on anything at any level. His legal team led by the former New York City mayor, Giuliani, does his bidding, which by itself is the way that lawyer-client relationships are supposed to function.

However, by doing what his client orders him to do, Giuliani becomes a critical witness in an investigation that aims to find the truth behind a full, frontal assault on our democratic form of government.

That cannot be allowed to stand.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Uncategorized

‘Trump is done’? Really?

Oh, how I am hoping that a conservative wiseacre is correct, that Donald J. Trump’s moment as a Republican political leader is over, that media outlets need to stop “obsessing” over him.

So says Ann Coulter, a one-time Trump loyalist turned harsh critic.

Don’t misunderstand me here. I am not an Ann Coulter fan. I dislike her politics and the harsh language she has used at times to pillory political figures I admire.

Moreover, I do not place much stock in what Coulter might know about the base of Trumpkins who continue to hang on the former POTUS’s every word. For all I know, Coulter is just popping off because, well … she can.

Coulter tweeted something out regarding Trump’s relationship with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis: “EXCLUSIVE: Trump is demanding to know Ron DeSantis’s booster status, and I can now reveal it,” Coulter wrote. “He was a loyal booster when Trump ran in 2016, but then he learned our president was a liar and con man whose grift was permanent. I hope that clears things up.”

Actually, it doesn’t clear anything up.

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter says Trump ‘is done’ (msn.com)

Coulter is going to enrage the Trump-cult base of nut jobs.

But you know what? She does have a point about whether the media should stop obsessing over Trump. The media are playing into Trump’s hands by continually observing on this and that statement that flies out of Trump’s pie hole.

Were they to remain silent, then perhaps he will fade away, or slither back under the rock from where he emerged in 2016 to run for POTUS.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news

Will we actually ‘lock him up’?

A gentleman I have known for more than two decades — a retired journalist who lives in South Australia — has mentioned a particular scenario he would like to see play out regarding the 45th president of the United States.

My friend wants to see Donald Trump arrested, dressed in an orange jump suit and tried for treason against the United States of America. Indeed, my far-away friend believes it’s still possible even as Trump wiggles and writhes in the face of growing pressure from federal and state authorities looking into his myriad business dealings.

Oh, and then we have the 1/6 riot, the insurrection that Trump incited that horrendous day in the final two weeks of the presidency he was about to vacate.

My friend and I exchange messages from time to time and he regales me with his view that Trump presents an existential threat to this great nation. He and I are on the same page as it regards the former Insurrectionist in Chief.

I am still clinging to the notion that an indictment might be coming — perhaps soon — from the Department of Justice. It might involve a charge of sedition against the individual who once swore to protect the Constitution. Sedition, of course, is the act of undermining the government, which Trump — to my mind, at least — did on 1/6 when he exhorted the rioters to “take back” the government.

I am going to wish the best for the investigation into Trump’s knowledge of the 1/6 riot. The “best,” in this instance, would be for congressional and DOJ investigators to cross enough t’s and dot enough i’s to bring a criminal indictment against a man I consider to be a rotten criminal.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com